Adaptable

The card is nuts! I always buy it if I can.

If your deck-building game is strong you can probably go without it. But when I play with my GF we never spend much time on building a new deck. We grab all the cards we consider good for the build and go with it without a second thought. Of course we never have clear idea about what upgrades we will make. This means rarely sub-par cards are taken with the idea they will shine once certain upgrades are done. And having to spend XP on level 0 cards we failed to take initially is a major pain.

Here comes Adaptable! You can start with whatever cards you want and once you grasp the dynamics of the investigator and the team needs , you can make changes accordingly. Last time I played Finn, I started with 25 unique cards (single copy). With Adaptable I easily got second copy of what proved good, and dropped the useless.

Why take Sleight of Hand from scenario one? Why not take the Luparas/Typewriters/Derringers first and swap cards that help more in the early campaign?

Lots of freedom to change your deck at little to no price. For me that card is pure value and if you are not playing it - you should!!! There is not a single drawback I see.

Bonus point: thematically it makes perfect sense rogues to have adaptable decks :)

vvi1g12 · 22
your first sentence is wrong, you don't buy this card in standalone. I agree with every other part of this review though — aurchen · 300
Flamethrower

Ok here my review on this one:

  • Pros

+4 fight

+4 dmg you may assign to every enemy engaged! with you.

+4 ammo which is a good number for a firearm

-Cons

This weapon makes standard dmg unless you 're engaged with a lot of enemies. So actually if you have only one enemy engaged with you make a total dmg of 1 against lightning gun that gives you +2 dmg.

In order to make a full potential of this weapon you need to be engaged with every monster. That means if another investigator has a monster on him you need to spend an action to engage that (-1 action if you dont have taunt in hand) but also the other monster will do attacks of opportunity. If you survive the attacks then you left with two actions remain to actually defeat the monsters and that is a normal scenario (there are worst out there)

It takes the slots of your hands and body and there are such great cards in there that takes place. Especially the new upgrade bandolier from Return to the Dunwich Legacy combined with Lightning Gun makes Roland a monster with 3 items and +1 willpower.

Now for the 5 xp and the 4 cost seems normal to me for a high end weapon. On solo if you 're engaged with more than 3 monsters usually you're dead. This weapon shines on multiplayer.

Final thought:

If i was going to pick i would prefer Lightning Gun over this any time because of its ability to kill a target in one action. Dont use it on Roland since the bandolier combo is better for him. Zoey can make a use of it (cause of her ability) but still only in multiplayer (as a chef first you burn them then you slice them ^^).

The slot usage really means that if you're building a Flamethrower deck, you have to commit to building a Flamethrower deck. There are cards like Taunt and Heroic Rescue that allow you to engage enemies without an action, worth picking up if you're leaning into a Flamethrower. — cb42 · 38
I think you have fundamentally misunderstood how this card works. You said, "So actually if you have only one enemy engaged with you make a total dmg of 1 against lightning gun that gives you +2 dmg," when the card says, " — Schielman · 38
instead of its standard damage, you may assign up to 4 damage among enemies engaged with you (any additional damage adds to this total)". You deal 4 damage to an enemy. If you commit Vicious Blow, you do more, but either way, that's more than Lighting Gun, which does 3 damage at base. The other advantage of flamethrower is that you can roast a whole room full of mooks (I've had a few situations where I wish I had the ability to kill 2 guys with one action). So no, I think in the vast majority of cases, flamethrower is much better than Lighting Gun. (I misclicked, which is why this comment is in two parts) — Schielman · 38
Schielman is right about how the damage works. That said, the reveal of Bandolier 2 does help swing some value back towards Lightning Gun and the BAR. — Death by Chocolate · 1490
Heroic Rescue

This card works great when it’s played in response to an attack of opportunity especially when you’re running it in a Zoey Samaras deck that has Guard Dog and Zoey's Cross in play. That’s three automatic damage not to mention the free engagement allowing the other investigator to act unmolested. Finally, the strength and willpower icons are always useful for all your combat and treachery skill tests. Great card!

FractalMind · 44
You nailed it. This card is great in my Yorick soak deck playing along side Daisy. Daisy also has Archaic Glyphs: Prophecy Foretold. Basically Daisy is free to sniff up clues 24/7. Enemies engaging her are rarely an interference. — crymoricus · 252
Improvised Weapon

Improvised Weapon - the ultimate back-up weapon?

Having played around with Improvised Weapon my conclusion is it fits the slot of a versatile back-up weapon.

When building for an investigator that can take Improvised Weapon it is never going to compete for the main weapon slot. There is still the need however for an alternative means of combat to hand in case you haven't drawn the main weapon, or you happen to be out of ammo/charges, or just want save ammo for the last swing. If combat is a focus, just including 4 weapons (two main, two backup) in a deck is not necessarily ideal but the temptation can be to include more weapons, which of course can reduce the flexibility of the deck.

In considering this back-up slot, something that may not be immediately obvious at first pass is the recursion potential of Improvised Weapon. After use from the discard it returns to your deck, which depending on the class will almost always be getting smaller. This means that although it only takes up one to two slots in deck construction, Improvised Weapon is effectively going to count as more copies of itself each time it is shuffled back into the deck. Even if this happens just once or twice a game your effective deck size is increasing by that amount, or to see it slightly differently, you have the potential to have more than two copies of Improvised Weapon in your deck without altering your deck size restriction.

This feature has pros and cons. By making your deck bigger the more you use Improvised Weapon, the less likely you are to draw another card you might need. However if you are using it you probably want to be seeing combat options sooner rather than later. Plus if you don't use it, well it just sits in your hand or discard until you do.

The second feature that makes Improvised Weapon shine is being an event that results in a fight action. This means no attacks of opportunity whenever it is used, no playing to the table that allows loss from asset-hate or competition with hand slots. It even resists deck milling by the mythos (which in turn makes it more effective!). In terms of straight damage it is very close to a knife that is discarded on the second action, but one that is fast, can be played from a discard pile and you can have more than two in your deck.

A brief mention also should be mentioned with regards to the -1 enemy fight value. As with shroud reduction verses investigation boost, reducing an enemy fight value is slightly better than boosting fight, even though the benefit is felt more with lower level fight tests. At present this is the only fight option that does this directly, Anatomical Diagrams being the only player card at present which does reduce fight but unfortunately without the fight action included.

The other points and considerations from previous reviews above are still very valid. While Improvised Weapon is a versatile back up or filler weapon, it isn't going to take down any enemies of more than 3 health and 3 fight easily on its own. In the most favourable situation assuming one Improvised Weapon in hand and one in the discard, it could dish out 5 damage for 3 resource and 3 action cost with 3 successful combat checks. Not perfect but it could save the day...

That said, Investigators that can take this and want to fight often may want rethink ignoring this card, especially early in a campaign. It can be useful for that odd ping of 1-2 damage in high combat investigators to save ammo and even in low combat investigators to give them at least something to fight back with. There will be better options later on, especially when classes are able to tutor for their main weapons, but even in late in a campaign, and depending on the scenario, being played from the discard can be clutch, while being filtered back into the deck ensures more readily available combat options are not far away.

In summary, don't ignore the effectiveness, recursion and resilience of this card as a combat option when everything else is against you. It works well equally with or without Dark Horse and especially well with discard options such as Cornered or, "Ashcan" Pete and Wendy Adams abilities. While the optimum play may be on a 1 fight enemy with 2 health when played from the discard pile, this card has a lot more going for it, even without other cards to support it.

Considering the Survivor faction, in my opinion this card is a flavour and faction home run; and one that is competes soundly for the title of the ultimate back-up weapon!

(Yes Survival Knife is ace, but no true survivor is going to want to take attacks on the chin regularly!)

SolarJ · 506
... except Yorick ;o) — AndyB · 957
Yeah but he's a 'true blue' survivor. Totally doesn't count ;o) — SolarJ · 506